What Martha Is
by MarthaBug0192
Summary: Five years after being shot by a cop and disabled with hemiparesis, and tolerating abuse, I nearly made the biggest mistake out of vengeance. I wasn't only rescued by the promising myth of Batman, but by a lost Bruce Wayne. He and Alfred showed me a new kind of life and healed me, as if they saw what I am inside, and Bruce needed me too. (In progress)


Please read this A/N: I promise this is the only interruption unless another is needed. Yes, another Martha story, but it's for a reason and I promise it won't be farfetched. Also, I realize everyone favors different portrayals and universes, and one reader may imagine Michael Keaton while another may imagine Christian Bale or maybe even cartoon Kevin Conroy or Val Kilmer. I tried to make things as flexible as possible and I'll either borrow aspects of every Bruce Wayne or I'll be vague and leave it to the imagination, so everyone can enjoy this. This is also taking place with a possibly AU younger Bruce Wayne to avoid whether or not he has a Robin and so that Alfred can have slightly more physical ability (think of the time per from Dark Knight or 89 Batman). I hope you enjoy and I do take suggestions or concerns.

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It was hard getting up for school. Tumbling out of bed trying to stand myself up on my crutch would make me tired enough to go back to sleep. I didn't anticipate hiding in the bathroom pretending to not hear my parents' screaming over the noise of my hairbrush. What made me really not want to try was the mark on my head.

In the mirror, my hair would part in the middle and flow to the side, as if it was avoiding the very top of my forehead. My eyes couldn't avoid it; even if I was simply checking my chin for food, my eyes would dart up towards the scar where a bullet's once been. But it was alright, I'd guess, because it's not like I could ever forget what happened.

I don't recall what day it was. I just know it was a school day, and I woke up simply because I had to. Bell's palsy on my mouth didn't stop me from telling me I loved myself, which was mostly because I'd placed my clothes near my bed the night before. My right hand maneuvered my school outfit onto me like magic, and I guess I'd been happy for that too. Plain, pharmacy brand diaper, too tight on one side in order to fit well on my other side. White T shirt, the left sleeve draping on my stick of an arm and right sleeve fitting too perfectly on my bicep. Tucked into a stained mint green skater skirt, which was held by uneven suspenders. It made me feel like I was out of a 60s film yet it was casual, and it didn't really require going to the mirror.

My crutch escorted me to the other side of my room, then nestled onto my hip when I fell onto my vanity chair. As routine, I pretended that all I could hear was the hairbrush bristles scratching my scalp, and the creaking of my secondhand vanity chair. I couldn't hear the distant but obnoxious arguing and drunk accusations coming from the living room.

When I shook my head, I swear my crutch was shrugging. It was a gutter crutch that strapped to my right arm, plain old gray, but it kept me going - literally. My left leg and hip wasn't even part of my body, let alone my dead left foot that always stepped with my big toe. Muscles in my left arm were dead to me at that point, and my hand would wave or clench to a fist unless I tied an object for it to hold. My right side would've been my only side if it hasn't been for my crutch acting like a second right leg. And my messenger bag, loaded with Batman symbols I'd drawn in Sharpie, as an arm; my batbag.

The same symbol popped onto the screen when I'd turned on my TV. Video footage of a dark blur scrambling around an alley, breaking up a scene that the cops could never do. I wouldn't say he's a masked vigilante, more like a passionate professional who actually knew what needed to be done for Gotham. The news reporter described him as "might be real". The footage only added to the other evidence, such as branded bat symbols and bat boomerangs found along the city. After months of the police and news channels insisting the masked man had been just an urban myth, this reporter on GCN was ready to start thinking otherwise. I believed in the Batman, even though it was too good to be true, and I knew certainly that he was serving justice.

"Martha!" my mother called.

I was caught up in pretending to not hear. I didn't respond.

It must've been multiple times, because now she was coming into my room. She'd rip the TV's cord from the wall. This time, the tear in the cord had given out and the cord ripped.

Now suddenly, when I needed to apologize, my Bell's palsy wouldn't let words escape my mouth.

"Martha, why don't you ever do anything around this house?" she sighed rhetorically. "Your father almost slipped on beer, on the floor... Apparently it's myyy fault." Things about how I should stop being lazy. How I should be more responsible and respectful. Every day, it was the same thing but with different nouns and variables.

Without even thinking, my eyes rolled into the back of their sockets. I'm surprised I didn't atart shaming her for my broken TV. However, I'd be blaming the right person, and it'd be illogical.

When she ran out of lecture words, my mother hit the TV, then struck me with the words, "You know that bat is just a myth. Stop it."

I gave her a high right brow.

"A man in a bat costume?" She laughed, kind of harder than normal to make sure I'd absorb her amusement. "If anyone was insane enough to do that, they'd be in Arkham or dead by now. If he really does exist, you're believing in a psychotic dead man."

I heard my dad's footsteps. "Shes essentially a baby. Of course she believes in these gothic fairytales."

It was hard to take offense to things like that. I didn't mind being a baby, if it meant something was being done for this city.

Maybe they didn't believe because all they know is evil. Evil is like nature, and there's nothing to do to combat what nature has in store. Even the police force is corrupt at times, it's good cop-bad cop, or the cops only have so much power over such a high population. I liked to think of Batman as wealthy, rich with both power and good passion. He could change lives, in a world where the financially rich tend to be snobs and the enforcers can't keep promises. The Bat was ready to believe in good, while watching over a city full of people who increasingly became ready to believe in good.

He may be a costumed man, but he was doing right by me. My daydreams on the schoolbus were more vivid that day, after the news segment. My dreams often consisted of him doing the jobs of careless cops. Fixing the failed plans and flawed system. Looking out for the people like me and not like me, even those who didn't deserve it. Sometimes I couldn't help but play a scene where he catches a cop. A sadist cop who had pulled a gun on a non-aggressive thief before missing his target and blowing out a part of my brains, and running into the shadows. Batman was out there aiding brutality victims, and sparing innocent victims.

For some reason, my reflection in the bus window, and my shot scar, made me wonder if he'd ever been a victim. If he'd ever been compromised or robbed or scarred. I didn't know it, but it was stupid of me to shake my head and say that he probably hadn't. He was too strong and high-willed to let anything hurt.


End file.
